Introduction:
Status of our migration studies.Old Birds: Updates on birds
tagged in '04 and '05.New Birds: Bios and
details of tagging five nestling or fledgling Ospreys in 2006.

If you would like to be included in an email list to
receive a notice each time maps are updated, send me an e-mail:
rbierreg@uncc.edu

Migration continues in October (scroll downto pick up the earlier
migrations): Lew
- Virginia and south.Della
- In South America.Erica
- Migration begins and ends.Comet
- Cuba and beyond. Moshup -
Florida and south.Jaws- Back around his first wintering area, but not quite there yet.

Migration
continues: Lew
- Virginia and south.Della
- North Carolina and south.Erica
- Migration begins and ends.Comet
- North Carolina and south. Moshup - New
Jersey to North Carolina.Jaws- Back around his first wintering area, but not quite there.

Maps for 2006
Migration begins:Lew
- Fledgling male hatched in Lewes, DEDella - Fledgling female from the Delaware
Seashore
State ParkErica - Fledgling female, also from the "DelSea"State
Park Comet - Young male tagged in Jamestown, RIMoshup - Young male tagged on Martha's
VineyardJaws- The on-again-off-again transmitter on the lone survivor of
the "class of '04" is back on the air and doing very interesting
things indeed!

This is the seventh year of our study of Osprey
migration. Since 2004 we have been concentrating on tagging juvenile birds. The
migrations of more than 150 adult Ospreys have been documented in North America,
mostly by Mark Martell during his time at the University of Minnesota's Raptor
Center. As a result we have a quite detailed understanding of how and when adult
Ospreys migrate. We know the routes they take. Almost all east-coast birds go
through Florida to Cuba to Hispaniola and on to South America. Some New England
birds think Florida or the Caribbean islands is far enough south, while some
Florida adults, for reasons difficult to conceive, migrate deep into South
America.

Other Florida adults stick around for the winter. Adult females migrate
about a month before males, and adults of both sexes are very faithful to their
chosen wintering grounds. Because young experience a very high mortality
rate and satellite transmitters are very expensive, only a handful of first-year
Ospreys had been tagged prior to 2004 and thus their migration is poorly
understood. When do they go south? How do they find a reliable wintering area?
Do they spend time exploring or chose the first good spot they find?We know
from traditional banding studies that they stay on the wintering grounds for at
least a year and a half. Do they all return in their second year? Do they go all
the way home on their first return?

With five young tagged this year (details below),
we have now tagged nine fledgling Ospreys, which is probably about as many as
have ever been tagged. By "cherry picking" young from old, established
breeding pairs, and trapping young that have already been flying for a couple of
weeks, we have significantly beaten the odds--only one of the five young tagged
prior to this year did not make it to the Caribbean.

On his migration south in the fall of 2005, our
only tagged adult Bluebeard was shot (almost certainly) just a couple of hundred
miles north of his wintering grounds. That left only Jaws, a fledgling tagged in
2004, as a candidate to return to Martha's Vineyard this spring, and his safety
was in question as the year began. Our last signals from him were in December of
2005, and those were intermittent. We suspected a malfunctioning transmitter,
given that he had been in what appeared to be Osprey heaven down in Colombia,
with lots of fish and no one around that shoots Ospreys. Lo and behold, in
March someone spotted an Osprey flying through eastern NC (when Jaws should have
been moving back for his first trip home). In late May his transmitter turned on
for a couple of days as he arrived back in his natal area. There's some sort of
problem with his solar panel, so we only get very sporadic messages from him,
but he's out there. The two one-year olds from the "class of '05" have
both settled down (Conanicus in Cuba and the peripatetic Homer in
Venezuela) and will spend another year, at least, down south before heading
home.

WHO'S WHO?(Click
on the bird's name to get to its series of maps.)

Jaws - Tagged in '04, this young male is
back on the Vineyard (and was recently spotted on Cape Cod!) with a
mal-functioning transmitter. With luck, we may be able to retrap him next year
and get the bad transmitter off him.

Homer- After turning a 3,500-mile
migration into a 5.200-mile odyssey (he was named for the pond near his nest,
not in anticipation of his extended travels!), Homer finally (March) settled down and is
moving back and forth between two locations in central Venezuela. He has found a
reservoir to his liking and in April was making occasional trips some 30 miles to
a mountain valley west of his reservoir. He has shown a predilection to mountain rivers
throughout his migration. We expect him back on Martha's Vineyard in the spring
of '07, in time to celebrate his second "hatchday."

Conanicus - Our Rhode Island youngster,
tagged as a recent fledgling in '05, continues to frequent the Zapata swamps in
southwestern Cuba. He should be back next year as well.

Five new young were tagged this summer. Three in
Delaware, thanks to a new program based at the Cape Henlopen State Park, one in
Rhode Island, and one on Martha's Vineyard. The Rhode Island bird, a young male
named "Comet" was tagged thanks to a grant obtained by the Rhode
Island Audubon Society as part of the on-going Conanicut
Island Raptor Project.

Della - A female tagged prior to her
fledging off a platform nest on the expansive salt marshes of the Delaware
Seashore State Park.

Erica - Another nestling tagged a few
miles north of Della's nest. Pictured with me and Erica is Richard Julian,
manager of the Cape Henlopen State Park Nature Center and guiding force
behind getting the satellite project going at the Park. Erica is wearing a
hood to keep her calm during the process of mounting the transmitter,
which is visible on her back.

Lew - This young male was trapped on his
nest in Lewes, Delaware. His nest is atop a 26' pole and we needed all the
ladder we could find to get up there. His big sister was also trapped, but only got a Fish and
Wildlife Service band.

Moshup - One of three young fledged
by the most productive pair of Ospreys on Martha's Vineyard, this bird was
named for the chief of Wampanoag legend, often pictured standing in
Vineyard Sound holding a whale in his hand. While we don't expect our Moshup
to make such
spectacular catches, he's already fishing the same waters. Moshup was seen
practicing low-angle dives into the Sound just prior to his capture. He
would crash into the water, bob around for a few seconds and then take off
and do it again.

Comet - is Conanicus's younger (1 year
later) brother, trapped on his nest at Marsh Meadow in Jamestown, RI. He was
named for Metacomet, AKA King Phillip, of the Wampanoag tribe. The Wampanoags
were the chief enemies of the
Narragansetts (Conanicus's tribe). Not that we're trying to get any sibling
rivalry going here.... Because Comet's parents arrived and quickly got down to
the business of nesting, we suspect they're the same adults that nested here
last year, making Conanicus and Comet full siblings.